


Fortune's Fool

by patchworkgirl



Series: Wizard of Fortune [2]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Post-Canon, Vignette, slice of very weird life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-27
Updated: 2017-10-07
Packaged: 2019-01-05 23:41:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12199611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patchworkgirl/pseuds/patchworkgirl
Summary: Days in the life of Taako, Emissary of the Lady of Fate





	1. The Golden Spindle

Nance stood quietly at the stagecoach pickup station, ignored by a gangly human reading a broadsheet and a family that could have been her cousins, though she'd never seen them before. There was a deep sameness about the halflings of the Waldshire. If she went over and introduced herself, she could say her family was from Weston Grange, and they'd be from Thuddlebrook or Mistleton or whatever, and they'd probably invite her to share lunch and turn out to have met her aunt on one side and her brother in law on the other.

 

And she could turn around and go home.

 

She could do that now, of course. No one would have missed her yet, and she could crumple up the note on her bed and go back to work in the stable in the morning and look after the ponies like she'd always done, put her gifts to use in quiet, homey ways in a quiet, homey place.

 

She should.

 

She should get on the next coach and get the hell to Neverwinter before she lost her nerve or the university came to their senses.

 

Both things seemed to be completely true, and the coach was due in less than an hour. Gnawing on the inside of her lip, she turned to start pacing a bit.

 

There was another passenger waiting. That was normal. The passenger was not. That she hadn't noticed him before was not.

 

He (well, she thought he, it was rude to assume) was dressed like an old-fashioned adventurer, something off the cover of a pulp novel or a costume character at a theme restaurant. Half cape full of pockets, heavy belt hanging with more odds and ends than could possibly be comfortable, a long tunic that was really more like a summer dress over leggings, even a sword at the belt. Was that even legal if you weren't working security? And the hat was... How did it even stay on his head? Covered in bangles and runes she couldn't read and, she could swear, as tall as she was.

 

When he turned toward her she realized she was staring. She should have been paralyzed by her own rudeness, but she just gaped a little more. He was an elf, and she'd never seen a full-blooded one before. There was a courier who operated out of Northall who'd had an elven grandmother, but this part of Faerun was almost all halflings and humans. She hadn't realized how different they really were from humans, how much smaller and more spindly, the odd sharpness and eerie planes of the face. Elves were supposed to be beautiful, and she could see it, but they were apparently kind of unsettling, too.

 

“Take a picture, punkin, it lasts longer.” His voice was as unctuous and snide as the Squire's during her annual Midsummer speech, but with a coolness that suggested he, unlike the Squire, actually didn't give a shit what people thought about what he said.

 

“Um. Sorry, sir.” He quirked a smile that seemed a bit sad, just for a moment before it returned to catlike smugness. “Are you going to Neverwinter?”

 

“Cool town.” Which was not at all an answer. But maybe the question was out of line. There were a lot of other stops along the line. “What's in Neverwinter?”

 

She'd been nosy first, and maybe it'd help to hear from a neutral party. “Um, school, maybe.”

 

“Not a bad place for that.” The elf shifted on the bench toward her, and she noticed one more odd thing. It had previously been drowned out by every other very odd thing. He was spinning. She'd never seen a real person use a handheld spindle before. Even people who wanted “handspun” thread expected it to come from a clunky wooden machine with a wheel. She only knew because she'd seen an automated illusion demonstrating the technique on a really dull school trip.

 

His spindle was not wood, like the one in the Waldshire History Museum. It was gold, and the thread was hard to focus her eyes on. It seemed to be several colors at once, depending on how she turned her head. It seemed fine enough for fancy lace one moment and heavy as twine the next. He handled it like an expert, even if it should logically have snapped the thread and hit the ground.

 

“School for what?” he asked, and she realized she'd been silent for a long moment.

 

“Um, magic. I've been... writing to one of the assistant professors, and she said she could line me up a scholarship if I got in at the right time.”

 

“Mm-hm?”

 

“Only... my parents don't want me to leave. Like, even if I talk about it in the abstract? It'll always be sometime next year or why don't you work by correspondence or your brother's husband has a really nice friend who wants to take me out.”

 

“Parents. What're you gonna do?” He sounded completely bland, casting the spindle again as though she were talking about the weather, not the rest of her life.

 

“I just wish I... I know I want to do it, you know?” He absolutely didn't care, clearly, and why not take advantage of a listener with no interest in judging her. “This is right for me, but I don't know if they'll ever forgive me. It's like there's a whole story ahead there and it's just the one little part I can't deal with, but...”

 

“Here's a story.” Sppppppppiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnn. There was just the faintest hum every time the thread was cast. She wasn't sure if that was supposed to be the case. “A massive rupture in the fabric of the plane due to a breach in research procedures at one of the premier institutions in Neverwinter. Casualties in the immediate area will never be completely settled, but the numbers are catastrophic. The damage to the nature of reality causes ripple effects for decades even after the efforts of dozens of deities and heroes. Shit is real fucked. The breach closes and the world returns to its original path, but only after a toll in misery not seen since the Day of Story and Song.” He looked up from his spindle to Nance, perfectly blasé in the face of her horrified look. “Alternately, a particularly meticulous research assistant who will probably go on to great things—that kind of thing doesn't send ripples in all directions and dimensions, sorry, can't be more specific—triple checks the calculations. The breach never occurs. Time itself never shudders with the impact. A neat little paradox is born, but that's somebody else's problem.”

 

“I mean, I guess I... think I see what you're saying?” In the most horrible and needlessly specific way possible. “But what are the chances something like that will actually happen?”

 

“To most people? Pretty much nil.”

 

“Oh.” He was a very confusing person to talk to. Bit unsettling. But... convincing, strangely. _Sorry, Mom and Dad, I was thinking about coming home but a weirdly dressed elf implied the world would end if I didn't go._ Frowning, she stared at her feet. Dumb. But... She'd really just been waiting for a sign, either way. If she'd gotten lunch from the halfling family on the other bench, maybe she'd have gone home. But she knew where she was going now.

 

She looked up to thank the elf. He was gone, but the air still hummed a little.

 


	2. The Unbreakable Thread

Song clung to the remains of the boat, watching the sky burn. The whole island must be buried in the ash and smoke by now, and he was very tempted to just let go and sink, join what must be the rest of the village. His lungs burned and his heart wanted to burst from the effort of staying afloat. He was clearly going to die, just like everyone else. Why fight it?

 

Because he didn't want to face any of them having given up. What if there were other survivors? People he could save? Those were nobler thoughts, but the first one had been not wanting to be the jerk who stopped trying.

 

In an exhaustion-addled moment, he reached for his strongest magic and cast true seeing. He wasn't a good enough sorcerer yet (ever?) to have a lot of spells of that caliber, and he'd surely have uses for more impressive choices if he really did intend to live out the night. But maybe... He'd never understood True Seeing very well. If it could show him whether this was hopeless or not, it'd be something. Not peace, but resignation?

 

Nothing changed about the roaring, shuddering mountain of flame that had been home until a few hours ago. But he was no longer alone in the sea. Near his piece of upturned boat-wreck, standing on the water with what seemed to be complete unconcern, was a figure in bare feet and a sleek gown.

 

Alright, hallucinations made a certain amount of sense. He was probably almost dead. But it was unfair that they should coincide with his True Seeing, wasn't it? The figure was very pretty, an elf and not a wood elf like he was. Song had never been very religious. Were any of the gods known to appear as androgynous figures standing on the ocean? That sounded like it could be a thing, but he wasn't sure.

 

“Um, excuse me?” Or that was what he meant to say. It mostly came out as a weak, strangled cough.

 

The figure started and looked at him. “Fuck, son, you're not supposed to be able to see me.”

 

Oh... Okay? “Sorry?” That sounded a little more like a word but made his throat feel kind of stabbed.

 

“No, no, I love it when people mess this shit up, way more interesting.”

 

“Interesting?” He went from confused and a little surprised that this might be what gods were like to angry. That was his home, buried in this freak eruption. The mountain had been quiet for generations.

 

“I'm too old to get upset. I totally get why you are. Intellectually and shit. But I'm not gonna get all... Just accept it and move on, kid.” Song was two-hundred and seventeen, but he decided not to bring that up. “Okay, here's how it is. You probably deserve the straight shit. Whole lotta gods got together about this incipient disaster. Big shift in... the parts of the planet that do planet stuff, I don't know, not my job. Something had to blow. They looked at every choice they had and this was the least worst option. Fewest people died, least damage to the rest of the world. I don't know, they made graphs or something.”

 

Song just sputtered, and not only because he was having trouble breathing. His parents, his sisters, his fiance, his horses...

 

“Yeah, I know.” Song wasn't sure if they mysterious maybe-god was reading his thoughts or they were just really obvious. He was too angry to care. “I wasn't at the meeting. I just work for someone who was. And who agrees with me that sometimes there are no right decisions. Just decisions. But that doesn't exonerate shit.”

 

Song didn't find this admission helpful in any way, but at least it was fair.

 

“So I'm supposed to be on observation. Recording. The consequences of the only choice. But you went and fucked that noise.” He sounded happy and it grated horribly in Song's ears. “Look, you can't see it—you'd have said something, I figure—but every death god with a foothold in this part of the world rolled out their whole retinue tonight. There's a great reception planned. They'll be fine. Dead-people fine, which, turns out, can be pretty okay. _Your_ way just got a lot harder.” The elf knelt down on the water like it was a floor, unaffected by the shifting of the waves. Song tried to spit at him. It didn't work and he didn't seem to notice. “You changed fate, spotting me out here. I'm bending the rules already, but I think I can swing you three questions. I'm nowhere near quota this year. Just, uh, think 'em at me.”

 

“Is...” He swallowed his rage and a lot of ashy sea water. Then tried just thinking. _Is anyone alive back there?_

 

“No, you're it.”

 

_Is there a way I can live through this?_

 

The elf frowned just a little, a frown that didn't disrupt the pretty lines of the face, and swung an odd-shaped piece of metal from his hand. It spun and dangled on a string that shimmered with what seemed to be a strand of magma. “Yup. Fishing boat came to gawk, just a little north of here. You can swim it.”

 

_I'm done._

 

“Smart! I like it. Put that last question in your pocket. Might need it someday.”

 

_When I get to shore..._

 

“You'll what, start a rebellion against the gods? Go for it.” The elf's smile grew savage and toothy, all aloof calm suddenly abandoned. “Being part of someone else's least worst choice fuckin' sucks donkey balls. You already broke their toys. Normal rules will never quite apply to you again. Tell your story and be rad, my friend.”

 

And the elf was gone.

 


	3. Warp and Weft

Fate and Death are lovers.

 

They met on the Day of Story and Song, when both their domains were dragged across Faerun, tearing scars in the landscape.

 

Death thought Fate was as beautiful as the moon, bright and cold and elegant. Fate thought Death was beautiful as the sun, fierce and warm and powerful. Death and their armies swept the enemies of life from the face of the earth. Fate and their magics chased every trace of their taint away and put the world back on its axis.

 

Fate and Death have their own domains and their own duties, but every hundred years, on the Day of the Day of Story and Song, they meet east of the sun and west of the moon to enjoy each other's company.

 

Every hundred years, on the Day the Day of Story and Song, no one dies, and everyone's fate is their own. Use it well.

 

Fate and Death are lovers.

 


	4. Tapestry

Goldcliff was an unpleasant place to be in late fall. It was never all that comfortable for a Panite, but there was enough work to be done that felt important to keep Mindy's awareness of the stark concrete and steel at a low ebb most of the year. It was only when that soulless urban wasteland met cold and damp, when nature came back for its revenge, that she really had anything against the city she'd called home for ten years.

 

She pulled her hood up and her scarf tighter, though the slow, soaking rain made that pretty pointless, and as she struggled with her slim protections from the elements, her head turned toward an alley. There was a person sitting there, a faint outline in the dark curled up and almost invisible beside a dumpster. The passing lights of a wagon glittered with the never quite natural light of its miniature arcane core, and the eerie glow lit up the thin silhouette and a faded red robe, more like something to be worn at a fancy graduation ceremony at one of the big universities than something a real person would walk around in. Maybe it was just a big coat and she'd seen wrong.

 

Either way, whoever the person was, they seemed to be staying where they were. And talking. To no one. There were only so many reasons to be down an alley in the rain, and none of them involved having someplace else to go or seemed friendly to someone who was having a conversation with the air. The person in the alley was small and the lights from the road hadn't shown anyone else down there. She reached into her purse and extracted a couple small bills. She was bone-tired and the cold was deep, but that was probably worse if you didn't have an apartment waiting at the end of the walk, right?

 

“Hey, um, 'scuse me?” She stood one step into the alley, ready to run into the streets. No one was talking to themselves or alone in the rain because they wanted to be, and no one deserved to be forgotten just because life had dealt a fucked up hand, but sometimes these things could get super awkward, even at work. Now she was just some lady walking over. Beating a quick retreat wasn't the worst thing to have a plan for.

 

The figure in the alley turned and put a finger to... his? His lips. Maybe. He had a lot of hair and a fine-featured face, and what did she know about anyone's life, but she was guessing _him_ for now. “Relax, don't wanna spook her.”

 

“Spook... who?” Maybe this had been a bad idea. Can't save everyone, Mindy.

 

“Check this out.” The man scooted to the side to reveal a crumpled cardboard box, and inside was a skinny puppy who'd given up shaking the rain off.

 

Mindy was still concerned about the man, but... Puppy. She hurried forward and crouched down, hoping not to get smeared with whatever the sediment was that accumulated in an alley between dumpy skyscrapers in the rain. Dirt was fine. This was nothing so wholesome as dirt. The puppy was bony and small but didn't look hurt or sick to her admittedly inexpert eye, but it was hanging back in the box, not giving the man in the coat any ground. “Oh, wow, are there... Did you see any other dogs around?”

 

“Nope, she's either lost or someone ditched her.” There was a very odd quality to the stranger's voice, a soft, uncertain gentleness that would be unremarkable in, say, a social worker for the Ministry of Pan but sat very awkwardly on him. “Looks like she's got some Scottish deerhound in her.”

 

“Um.” The puppy just looked like a little dark lump to her. “Cool. Are you... do you have a way to call animal control or something?” She still couldn't see him well, but that big coat could probably hide a stone of farspeech.

 

“I was thinking about it.” He suddenly sounded very bland. “I had one. Loooooong time ago.”

 

“You had a dog?” He was definitely not all there, and she wasn't sure if she should try to help the man first or the puppy.

 

“Scottish deerhound. A friend thought I needed the company. Like I said. Been awhile.”

 

She might as well just participate in the weirdness. “What was her name?”

 

“Macaroon.”

 

“Cute name.” She dug into her pocket for what was left of her lunch (half a cereal bar at her desk, because she had a great work-life balance) and held it out to the puppy. Puppies were probably not supposed to eat peanuts and oatmeal, but it did its job and got the little animal's attention. It came nosing out and, after a long moment, licked the crumby bits from Mindy's fingers. Its tongue was shockingly warm in the cold and dark and looked up at her with big eyes.

 

Fuck.

 

Well, she had just moved into a pet-friendly apartment. She'd been planning to start with a hamster or something, but... “Hey, little girl, you all alone out here?” Someone could be looking. But probably not.

 

“She looks like a Johann to me.”

 

Mindy had sort of forgotten the man was there, and she started and stared at him for a moment. “Um. Didn't you say she's a girl dog?”

 

“Tell ya a secret? She's a fuckin' dog.”

 

“Okay, okay, Johann.” That was a dumb name for a dog, but she had a feeling it was gonna stick. Sometimes these things happened. “Look, um, I'm... I'm gonna take her home with me, at least for the night. Do you have... somewhere to be?”

 

“Sure, sure, don't worry about me, I'm good out here.” The words were spoken lightly, but there was a bit of steel in him nonetheless.

 

“Right. Look, if you ever decide that's not what you want, though, you can come to our office, okay? Here.” She extracted a business card and held it out. He took it after a moment—she was afraid he wouldn't—and nodded slowly.

 

She gathered up the puppy, who still wasn't all wiggles and enthusiasm like she should be but seemed a lot calmer in her arms. When she took one more look at the man, he waved cheerfully like rain wasn't streaming down every inch of him. “You and Johann have a good night, Miss Highchurch.”

 

He'd actually looked at the business card. Good. She nodded and stepped out of the alley, wondering what she was getting herself into as the lights on the street illuminated the little bundle of wet fluff in her arms. A wagon rushed by and tossed a small lake's worth of water at them both. She braced herself, hoping the puppy would forgive her, but the water stopped short in a very unnaturally foreshortened splash. She cast her eyes to the damp, unforgiving heavens, squinting past a floodlight advertisement for Hugbear Cola as it played across the clouds. _Thanks, boss_.

 

The voice of Pan resonated in her chest, gentle and fond and familiar. _That one wasn't me, kiddo._

 


End file.
